Building Image Impact; Six Basic Controls

As we have discussed in previous posts, our goal in printmaking is to tell the photographic story through compelling images. Building visual impact is essential to grabbing and holding the viewer's attention. We use six basic elements that, when properly adjusted or enhanced, can transform your images dramatically. They are composition/cropping; focus/sharpness; contrast/density; burning/dodging; texture/border treatment; and color balance. There are, of course, other choices to be made in the display/presentation of the final printed image, such as paper choice and finish, print size, framing/matting, etc.

Here is the original image by Zeb Starnes, taken in flat, overhead lighting:

I felt the subject/story was better suited with a tighter crop to eliminate some unnecesary background elements. I cropped at an angle to give an added sense of motion.

Next, I wanted to focus attention on the subject, so I selectively blurred the background to simulate shallow depth of field/wide open camera aperture.

To overcome the flat lighting, I used curves to increase contrast, while darkening the entire image:

The heavy corner burn directs the eye to the subject by playing down the busy background elements. The burn comes from a separate curves layer set very dark, then selectively painted in just where I wanted it; this method gives tremendous control and avoids the "tunnel" effect that presets or actions sometimes produce.

For added visual interest, I added my "glass plate" border, which gives a nice aged, distressed edge, along with some grain texture. As with many of our texture/border treatments, I produced this myself by scanning one of my antique glass plate negatives, and combining it with the original image. (I also use scans from tintypes, daguerreotypes, aged papers and more)

Lastly, I wanted to "flavor" the image with a more interesting color balance; I used the red and blue curves to provide a subtle sepia/split tone.

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Relevant posts:

Creating Distressed Image Effects

Creative Vision and the Printmaker Part 1

Creative Vision and the Printmaker Part 2

Creative Vision and the Printmaker Part 3

Photoshop and Your Creative Vision Part 1

Photoshop and Your Creative Vision Part 2

Photoshop and Your Creative Vision Part 3

Photoshop and Your Creative Vision Part 4

Photoshop and Your Creative Vision Part 5

Plus more examples in my video, "The Printmaker's Vision"